STATE ( AL Canadi )
The work “STATE ( AL Canadi )” is a series of photographs from a video of the same name, which was made in 2013
in Syria by members of the Islamic State, with the aim of using it as a recruitment tool for new members. The video
shows the life journey of a Canadian jihadist from the West to Syria and death in battle.
Clips from battles and from promotional videos about Canada are used, in effect creating a new category of
propagandistic video which combines particularly heterogeneous material.
The purpose of the artwork is to focus on a narrative which goes beyond the iconography of the source material itself,
using the photographic medium. The use of material from travel documentaries about Canada in juxtaposition with
actual battle scenes poses a number of questions:
What are the boundaries of the real and the staged?
How much distance separates the two places and cultures and the images that represent them? Finally, can we speak of
a clash of cultures or simply of different manifestations of conflict in a postmodern world?
Apostolos Zerdevas
